A Labor of Love

By Pilar Viladas

Published: April 16, 2000

On a hilltop in Caracas, Venezuela, overlooking the city and the mountains that surround it, sits one of the postwar era's most exuberant works of domestic architecture. The Villa Planchart was designed for Armando and Anala Planchart by the Italian architect Gio Ponti (1891-1979) and completed in 1956. Ponti designed not only the 10,000-square-foot, six-bedroom house, but all the furniture and many of the objects within it with the spirit and sensuality that were the hallmarks of his humanistic brand of modernism. Still occupied by Anala Planchart, the house is a testament not just to a couple's happy marriage, but also to an enduring friendship between clients and architect.

By the early 1950's, Armando Planchart was a successful General Motors dealer in Venezuela. He and Anala had been married since 1936. ''My husband was a very unusual man,'' she says. ''His first priority in life was to make me happy. In 42 years, we never spent a night apart.''

The couple had no children, and Armando Planchart, having decided that it was time to enjoy the fruits of his labors, told his wife that he wanted to buy a farm. She didn't. ''One day,'' she explains, ''I was driving around, and I saw this land. So I told my husband that I had found a beautiful 'farm.' 'In Caracas?' he replied. But one day he said, 'Get dressed, I'm going to take you someplace.' We came here, and he had a table, Champagne and caviar in the trunk of the car. And he said to me: 'It's yours. What are you going to do with it?' ''

The Plancharts found the answer in the pages of Domus, the architecture and design magazine that was founded by Ponti in 1928 (and still exists). They liked what they saw of his work in the magazine, and flew to Milan to interview the architect, who designed everything from office buildings (he would soon design his famous Pirelli tower in Milan) to ship interiors (like that of the Andrea Doria) to chairs and teacups with the same intelligence and elegance.

One thing that struck Anala Planchart immediately was Ponti's willingness to listen to their opinions. ''He wasn't the kind of architect who said, 'I'm going to do this,' ''she explains. When Ponti did a preliminary sketch of a house that evoked a hacienda, she said: ''That's a Spanish house. I want a modern house.'' When asked what else she wanted, Anala Planchart replied, ''no walls,'' referring to an open, expansive interior. Her husband, an amateur orchid grower, wanted plants throughout the house.

By 1954, Ponti had made his first trip to the Plancharts' hilltop site, and pronounced that their house would look like a butterfly that had alighted on a mountain.

The finished product may not look exactly like a butterfly, but you could say that it floats like one. The mosaic-tile-covered sides of the house don't quite meet at the corners, and the roof appears to hover just a few inches above the building. Inside, the main living area is a soaring, double-height space filled with color, light and flowers; it opens onto a junglelike courtyard and also leads to a spectacular dining room, where a tall window frames a cinematic view of the city and mountains. Ponti layered tone on tone, and pattern on pattern: the floors are a crazy-quilt assemblage of big marble slabs in various colors; the ceilings are diagonally striped in yellow and white; and the dining room tables are enameled with geometric designs in luscious shades of blue, green, yellow and pink. In the hands of a lesser talent, this joyful visual noise would have been a cacophony.

Ponti's seemingly inexhaustible ingenuity produced wonderful surprises: In the bedrooms, the headboards (''organized walls,'' he called them) have built-in reading lights, cigarette lighters and ashtrays (he had first seen them on a train). The glass-fronted closet doors double as a photograph album to record the Plancharts' life together, and ingenious, electric-powered cabinets in the study revolve to either display or conceal Armando Planchart's collection of hunting trophies. (This was Ponti's solution to the one disagreement he had with his clients -- he disliked the animal heads.) Custom-designed dinner plates bear one of Ponti's drawings of the house in gold. And the rooms are filled with various iterations of the lightweight wooden chair that Ponti designed for Cassina, which culminated in the ''Superleggera'' (superlight) chair of 1957 -- you can pick it up with one finger.

Long after the house was completed, the Plancharts remained close to Ponti and his wife, Giulia. (She died in 1975, followed by Armando Planchart in 1978 and Ponti himself in 1979.) Anala Planchart, at 89 the lone surviving member of this mutual admiration society, takes what she calls a ''panoramic view'' of life, but her home is still a priority: ''I like the house to be alive,'' she insists. That is why, before Armando Planchart died, the couple established a foundation to maintain the house. They had the foresight not only to hire a modern architect, but also to ensure that his visionary design wouldn't be lost to history.

Photos: Opposite page: A tall window on the Villa Planchart's exterior belongs to the formal dining room, shown on this page. The house's architect, Gio Ponti, designed dining tables -- with enameled, geometric-patterned tops -- that could stand alone or be grouped together for large gatherings, and that could adjust from coffee-table to dining-table height. Among the room's artworks is a small still life by Giorgio Morandi, which hangs to the right of the window. (pg. 72); Above the airy, orchid-filled living room, the television room can be closed off with pivoting shutters. The living room is filled with Ponti-designed furniture, still covered in its original leather upholstery. Above: In the study, cabinets open and close electrically to display -- or hide -- Armando Planchart's hunting trophies. (Ponti preferred to hide them.) Ponti designed the armless, biomorphic-looking ''Round'' chair at right; he created the ''Mariposa'' armchairs for Cassina in the 1950's. Near right: The entrance hall boasts a pair of Ponti chairs and a Calder mobile. Far right: The Plancharts and Ponti commissioned a large wall piece from the Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti, a frequent Ponti collaborator, for the richly textured stairwell off the living room. Melotti also designed the tiles for several of the house's bathrooms. (pgs. 74 & 75); Above: Ponti espoused the idea of the ''organized wall,'' which blurred the distinctions between architecture and furnishings. In Armando Planchart's bedroom, the bed is surrounded by a wooden wall that contains bookshelves, a newspaper rack, a built-in reading light and even a cigarette lighter and pullout ashtray. Anala Planchart's bed is designed along similar lines. Near right: Anala Planchart's bathroom is lined with panels of pink marble; a light-toned version of Ponti's ''Superleggera'' chair with a terry-cloth cushion is a practical counterpoint to the glamorous mirrored dressing table. Far right, this page: Anala Planchart in her husband's dressing room; the glass-fronted closet doors serve as a photograph album of the Plancharts' life together, showcasing pictures of their travels, family and friends, including Ponti himself. (pg. 76); Near left: Ponti designed four open-air porches for the house, all of which were carved out of the building. They have the same marble floors as the rooms, to dissolve the distinction between inside and outside. Against this porch's stone-mosaic wall stands the 1957 black-and-white ''Superleggera'' chair; it was designed with a mate in which the colors were reversed. Below: A staircase leads from the living room down to the basement-level playroom. The stair risers are faced with various kinds of marble; the handrail was custom-made to display part of the couple's mineral collection. The chairs at right, designed by Ponti in 1950 for Fornasetti, are wrapped in newspapers chosen by Armando Planchart. (Photographed by Jason Schmidt) (pg. 77)